Chapter 10 - The House with the Red Door.
Brian and Ted were still at Mars’ office discussing and revising their plans when Brian’s phone vibrated and chimed indicating he’d received a text message. He rapidly pulled the phone out of his pocket and checked the screen. He smiled up at his cohorts as soon as he’d read the brief text.
“It’s showtime boys!” Brian declared with his typical sardonic smile and a tilt of his head. “Justin’s phone was just activated. He’s. . . . “ Brian’s voice trailed off while he tapped at the phone screen a few times until he found the information he’d been looking for. “He’s by Deb’s house . . . again. Hmmm. I wonder why Hobbs, or whoever’s got Justin, would be there?”
“No time to wonder about that, man,” Mars trumpeted, jumping up from his chair and running around the desk to grab Ted’s cell phone away from the diffident man. “We got to get that text sent while the phone is still on and the perp’s looking at it. Otherwise, your plan is for shit, man.”
The burly black man was already keying something into Ted’s phone as he spoke though, not waiting for Brian or Ted to act on their own. He quickly finished his tapped out message and then hit the ‘send’ button. Then the grinning man calmed instantly and handed back the small device to the waiting pair.
“Done! Let’s hope, my friend, that your plan works,” Mars said, his brilliantly white teeth shining out of a wide smile. “This spy stuff is fun, man. You know, there are no famous Jamaican detectives in literature. Maybe I could be the first one, hey?”
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Hobbs was just finishing up with Taylor’s phone and was about to shut it off when a new text message came up: ‘Ted Schmidt: Em’s been hurt. Not doing well. I’m heading to hospital. I can pick you up @ your place if you want.’
‘Shit,’ thought Hobbs, slamming his fist against the steering wheel in anger. ‘I thought that fairy was toast. I can’t believe he’s still alive. I thought I hit him pretty hard, damn it. Why are all these fairies so fucking hard to get rid of?’
Hobbs briefly contemplated driving to the hospital to take care of that Emmett character right away, but quickly changed his mind. His last attempt at the hospital with that Michael guy hadn’t gone too well and he was reluctant to return to the place. Hobbs figured that even the idiot cops might start to get a little suspicious if all Taylor’s friends who ended up in the hospital had ‘accidents’ while they were patients. He’d just have to continue being patient himself and wait to see what happened to this Emmett. The text did say that the fag was, ‘not doing well.’ Maybe the guy would kick the bucket after all. Either way, it didn’t seem worth the risk to try anything again at the hospital.
Plus, he was already here at the bitchy red-head’s house. He’d already chosen her as his next target, right? He didn’t want to start getting sloppy and running around without a plan. It was probably better to stay here and work out a blueprint for how he was going to get to Ms. Novotny.
However, from the lack of lights on in the house, not to mention the lack of movement, Hobbs figured that nobody was home here right now, anyway. Undoubtedly he’d have to wait and watch the house for a long while before he was familiar enough with the occupants’ routines before he could come up with any real plan. He wouldn’t be able to ‘hit’ the Novotny bitch today at any rate.
Hobbs felt too antsy to just sit and do surveillance, though. He’d been getting almost no sleep lately but, oddly, he wasn’t all that tired. He felt wired. All the adrenaline from the past few days was still working in his system and he just didn’t think he could sit here in his truck much longer. He wanted action, not just waiting around.
Besides, now that Taylor was awake, he was feeling pretty nervous about what he was going to do about THAT whole part of the plan. If he sat around too much he’d be forced to think about it and he didn’t want to think about Taylor at all. He wanted it all to just go away - the anxiety, the anger, the embarrassment, the longing - ALL of it. No way was Hobbs going to be able to just sit around here the rest of the day waiting for the bitch to return while he worried about all of THAT. He had to take some kind of action right away. But, what?
That’s when he noticed he still had Taylor’s cell phone in his hand. “Shit!” he muttered angrily. He should have already turned it off and taken out the damn SIM card by now. He knew that the boyfriend was tracking the fucking thing and he’d meant to only have it on a brief time while he used the Contacts list. Now, he’d inadvertently left the thing on for god knows how long. Kinney was probably halfway here already.
Hobbs started to reach for the power button to switch the phone off when he saw the last text message - the one he’d been reading when he got distracted before.
“Ted Schmidt? Who are you, Ted Schmidt?” Hobbs commented aloud to himself. “You obviously know Taylor and that fairy Emmett . . . It’s probably a safe bet that you’re a fag too, right? And, if I tell you to pick up Taylor at his apartment, then I’ll know exactly where you’re going to be . . . . That crappy building Taylor lives in has absolutely NO security and except for those Meth-heads and the party guys the other night there wasn’t a lot of traffic . . . . . So, if I’m careful this time and wear gloves and maybe a hat so nobody who happens to see me will recognize me, I could probably get in and out without leaving any evidence . . . Maybe I could even set it up to look like it was Taylor’s fault? Then, when Taylor disappears too, it would just look like he was running . . . . Hmmm . . . Maybe? . . . . “
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“Come on. Take the bait you fucker. Come on!” Brian was chanting to himself in an undertone while the three men waited for a response to the text that had been sent to Justin’s phone.
Brian kept checking the phone tracking app and noted that Justin’s phone hadn’t moved at all since the text was sent. Whoever had Justin’s phone was hovering near Debbie’s house, just sitting there. Brian was starting to get pretty anxious, wondering what the person was doing at Deb’s. But, since Emmett was still at the hospital - and Carl had promised him that they’d put some security on Emmett’s room as well as Michael’s - and since he knew that Debbie was working till 6:00 pm today, there shouldn’t be anyone at the house. So, what was that creep doing there?
While Brian was muttering to himself, Ted had been pacing back and forth in the small space between the doorway and the visitors’ chairs for the past five minutes. Mars was lounging in his big, ergonomically designed desk chair, occasionally clicking the mouse or typing desultorily at the keyboard of one or the other of his computers while they waited. It had been almost ten minutes since they’d sent the message. They were all wondering what was taking so long. Would their plan work?
*Chime* came the signal from the cell phone sitting on the corner of Mars’ desk as all three simultaneously leaned over and, heads together, stared at the screen of Ted’s iPhone.
‘J. Taylor: Please. Meet U @ my apartment in 45 mins. Thx.’ the incoming text message read.
“Yes!” Brian said jumping out of his chair and already running towards the door. As he ran down the hallway, he yelled at Mars over his shoulder, “make sure the cameras are working and then give me five minutes before you call the cops. Let’s go, Theodore!”
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“I don’t know about this, Brian,” Ted complained as his friend drove at breakneck speeds towards Justin’s rickety old apartment building. “He could have a gun or something. I’m not really comfortable with violence, you know. I mean. . . .”
“Calm yourself, Theodore,” Brian commanded, authority and control ringing clearly in his tone. “I don’t think he has a gun - if he did he would have used that on Emmy Lou instead of trying to knock the boy’s brains out. Besides, I’ll be right there with you. You won’t even have to go in the apartment. But I need you to actually knock on the door for me, is all. The apartment has one of those peep-hole things in the door so I need you to just stand there until Hobbs sees that it’s you and not me. As soon as he starts to open the door, you can back away to safety and I’ll take it from there.”
“Yeah, and then what do you plan on doing?” Ted asked skeptically, although holding up his hands in surrender when Brian shot him an angry look. “Have you actually thought out this plan of your’s, Bri? Some psychopathic freak has apparently taken Justin captive - if not worse - bombed your nightclub, and tried to kill Michael and Emmett. And you’re going to do what? Just ‘rush him’ when he opens the door? You’re going to get yourself fucking killed, Brian. Shouldn’t we just wait till the cops get here?”
“Right - wait for the cops to act,” Brian yelled back at Ted, who’s now cringing against the side door. “I’ve BEEN waiting for the cops for three days now, Ted! Carl can’t do anything to help find Justin until it’s been seventy-two hours - that’s not till tomorrow fucking morning. I’m NOT waiting any longer to find him. I know that Justin needs me. I just fucking know it.”
After a few minutes of silence, Ted revamped his courage enough to try again to discourage his friend’s seemingly reckless behavior. “But, Brian, if I remember right this Hobbs is a pretty big guy, isn’t he? You really think you can take him? And what if he has a weapon - maybe not a gun but a knife or whatever? What the hell are you going to do then?”
“I don’t know what I’ll do, Theodore,” Brian responded relatively calmly as he pulled the Vette up to the curb about a block away from Justin’s building. He pulled the keys out of the ignition, handed them to Ted and then started to get out of the car. “I’ll make it up as I go. I’m pretty good at improvising. You just wait here until it’s time. I’ll be waiting upstairs - hiding somewhere. Don’t worry, I’ll be close. I want to be somewhere that I can see what’s happening. As soon as I hear from Mars that he’s in the apartment, I’ll call you and you can come up. I’ll meet you up there.”
Then Brian was off, not waiting for a response from Ted before he bolted down the street towards the old warehouse building.
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‘Ted Schmidt: Okay. I’ll be there soon.’
Hobbs read the reply text which came almost immediately after he’d sent ‘Taylor’s’ response accepting the ride to the hospital. He needed to rush over to Taylor’s apartment and get things ready before this Ted guy got there. But he thought he’d better clarify one little thing first, so he sent one last message before tossing the phone aside.
‘Need a shower first. Come on up when you get here.’ Hobbs keyed in and then hit the send button, trying to make sure that Schmidt would come all the way upstairs into Taylor’s apartment and not expect him to meet him down at the curb. For what he had planned, Hobbs would need his victim to end up inside Taylor’s apartment.
He tossed the phone onto the dashboard and quickly started up the truck’s engine, heading straight for Taylor’s place as fast as he could drive. In his mind, Hobbs was already reviewing what he planned and going over lists of what he’d need. Luckily, he already had all the equipment he’d need in the locker box of his truck. He was a little bit more nervous than usual though - so far his plans hadn’t been working out real well and he was determined to think and rethink this one enough to prevent any further mishaps. There could be no more mistakes. Hobbs was convinced of that. So, to be sure, as he drove he went over the plan in his mind again and again.
He arrived at the building in less time than he thought it would take, which he took as a good sign. He parked his big red truck in the alley behind the building right across from the rear loading dock of the old warehouse. Then Hobbs hopped out and wasted no time getting a baseball cap, a sturdy pair of work gloves and his old high-school baseball bat out of the locker in the bed of the truck. Once he had everything, he dashed up the back stairs and headed into the apartment building. Ready to lay a trap for his next target.
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